Haley's Haven

Matt and I got to go to an event last night - a cruise around the harbor with dinner.  I felt very fancy.   The best part about the night was having focused quality time with the other two pastors of our church and their wives.  It's funny how we all spend so much time with other people in the church that we hardly ever get time to just hang out with each other.  I love those people!

This bus was just parked by the lake.  So many questions... The island of Ometepe!  We spent some time there - the island is where the school for the deaf is located.  Beautiful place - attracts hippie travelers, I noticed.  And hipsters.  And foreign backpackers. Who wouldn't trust a ferry named after Che.....?! Miss this guys all the time! Pulling in to our partner church's parking lot, with a door in the back of the truck.  Why not? First brick made by Building Love's brick machine.  Awesome moment. Deaf students taking a break and playing baseball by the lake. Just being culturally appropriate and riding in the back of the truck! This is Don Jose, the recipient of the house we built. Much flesh. Matt, teaching the boys how to bend steel.  Life skills. Mi amigo Javier.  Last two nights were spent debriefing at this magical spot.        When Matt told me...

It is hard to say this out loud, but I believe we will be covering the pool this week.  Incessant rain has squelched our plans to finish strong and swim as long as we could.  Despair.  We had good times, though!

Forgive me, but this is the first time I've had real, live, mature plants in my yard :). 

  As I sit here and pray this winter storm away, I am trying to dwell not so much on the freeze, but more on happier times.  Like that day last week when it was warm enough to walk on the beach (even though we froze our buns off).  Or that time that we went to the mountains and sat on rocks, with shorts on, and didn't shiver.  At all. Or that time we swam.  And we had a really really really good time.  A warmly good time.

  Horrible moment of soul-baring honesty...I read this book on my ipad.  It was free in ibooks (many books are free on there - you should check, but only if you don't have a graphic on the lower right hand column of your blog that says "I PLEDGE TO READ THE PRINTED WORD" - oh the shame.) Anyway, perhaps it was because of the guilt associated (although I read The Jungle Book on the ipad and absolutely loved it - for some reason I'd never read the original - but I digress) this book seemed to be unedited.  I'll need to do some research but I'll tell you, it was like reading someone's rambling thoughts, and then apparently someone told her "Hey, finish this up today" so she did.  The ending was quick, boring, and quite unsatisfactory.  It was like watching a Disney Princess movie, and skipping out on the essential 10 minutes of true love at the end, and going straight to the line "and they lived happily ever after."  Weird.   Bu...

Thankful today that, even though there are those that may scoff at us Charlestonians and our weather closure overkills,  everyone I know made it home safely last night and is not stranded on a road somewhere.   If I lived in Atlanta I would be nuts right now - crazy!   Usually when we look at this clock and this thermometer it is from the pool, and it usually reads at least 80.  The palm trees are sad and mopey. This was the second trip outside to do his business.  No business was accomplished except for some snow-eating. Despite the icicles, no power outages in the 'hood as of yet.  We were worried because this is the first neighborhood we have lived in that has exposed power lines. Thankful for this!